Turner's talent was recognised early in his life, and financial independence later allowed him to innovate freely. His mature work is characterised by a rich chromatic palette and broadly applied atmospheric washes of paint. According to *The Illustrated History of Art* by David Piper, his later pictures were sometimes called “fantastic puzzles.” Turner was widely recognised as an artistic genius, and the English art critic John Ruskin described him as the artist who could most powerfully and truthfully capture the moods of nature. Turner’s imagination was often inspired by dramatic events such as shipwrecks, fires, including the burning of Parliament in 1834 which he witnessed, and natural phenomena such as sunlight, storms, rain, and fog. He was particularly fascinated by the violent power of the sea, as seen in works such as *The Slave Ship* and *Rockets and Blue Lights (Close at Hand) to Warn Steamboats of Shoal Water*, both first exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1840. A 2003 exhibition at the Clark Art Institute suggested that these two paintings may have been intended as companion pieces because of their similar subject matter and size. Despite his reputation, Turner’s work was sometimes criticised by contemporaries. An anonymous reviewer of the 1840 Royal Academy exhibition, later identified as John Eagles, called the paintings “absurd extravagances that disgrace the Exhibition,” and the landscape painter Sir George Beaumont described them as “blots.” Turner also made a major contribution to printmaking through *Liber Studiorum* (Book of Studies), a series of seventy prints produced between 1806 and 1819. The project expressed his ideas about landscape art and categorised landscapes into six types: Marine, Mountainous, Pastoral, Historical, Architectural, and Elevated or Epic Pastoral. The idea was loosely inspired by Claude Lorrain’s *Liber Veritatis*, in which the artist had recorded his completed paintings. Turner intended his prints to be widely distributed, and printmaking became an important part of his artistic output. A museum dedicated to his prints, the Turner Museum in Sarasota, Florida, was founded in 1974 by Douglass Montrose-Graem to house a collection of them. Turner's early works, such as *Tintern Abbey* (1795), follow the traditions of English landscape painting, while later works such as *Hannibal Crossing the Alps* (1812) show an increasing emphasis on the destructive power of nature. His distinctive painting style often combined watercolour techniques with oil paints, producing lightness, fluidity, and atmospheric effects. In his later years he used oils more transparently and increasingly focused on creating impressions of light through shimmering colour. A famous example of this mature style is *Rain, Steam and Speed – The Great Western Railway*, where the forms of objects become almost indistinct. Turner's use of colour and his fascination with fleeting light placed him at the forefront of English painting and influenced artists in France, particularly the Impressionists such as Claude Monet, who studied his techniques closely. He is also often regarded as a precursor to abstract painting. The eruption of Mount Tambora in 1815, which filled the atmosphere with volcanic ash and caused the unusually dramatic sunsets of the “Year Without a Summer” in 1816, may also have inspired some of Turner’s striking sky effects. John Ruskin later wrote that an early patron, Thomas Monro, principal physician of Bedlam and a collector and amateur artist, played an important role in shaping Turner’s style. Under Monro’s guidance Turner practised watercolour painting and studied alongside other young artists, including his friend Thomas Girtin. In Monro’s London home they copied works by leading topographical draughtsmen of the time to refine their drawing skills. Turner was also influenced by the atmospheric watercolours of John Robert Cozens, which he saw there. Cozens’s dramatic Alpine scenes demonstrated to the young Turner how watercolour could convey mood and atmosphere rather than simply record visual detail.